


Carte Blanche

by fannishliss



Category: Leverage
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 15:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13216866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: Christmas time is drawing near and Parker's getting squirrelly.  What will Hardison and Eliot find under the tree this year?





	Carte Blanche

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meils121](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meils121/gifts).



> This is for meils121, because I so much enjoyed her raft of lovely gifts in the 2017 Leverage Secret Santa fic exchange. She prompted for Parker hijinks, team backstories, and Eliot dealing with his past. Hope you enjoy!

Parker was acting squirrelly, that is, more squirrelly than usual.

 

Eliot attributed her nerves and jumpiness to the approach of the Christmas season and the accompanying secrecy of gift giving. Christmas brought out the mastermind in Parker, but she kept her schemes and plans strictly to herself.  Despite her devotion to Santa and her aspirations to be less naughty and more nice, Parker equated gift giving with monetary value.  Parker lived by the motto that the best things in life were free, and to her, free meant stolen.  She wanted nothing but the best for her team.  Over the years she had stolen thousands of dollars worth of diamonds for Sophie, slipping them to her friend when Nate’s attention was focused on other matters.  Nate she regaled with signed first editions that he could never bring himself to return despite his disapproval of Parker’s methods of procurement.  For Hardison, Parker stole the biggest, most high value paintings and objets d’art she could figure out how to transport. And for Eliot, she often stole knives or swords -- always from private collections, never where there was family history or sentimental value.  

 

Eliot had seen enough long, narrow boxes under the tree to expect something similar this year. It was a relief to Eliot that their thief no longer snuck away to sleep in her own cold and (even to him) somewhat forbidding warehouse. She still kept the place  -- the roof was high enough for her to adequately test her climbing rigs, there was plenty of floor space for gymnastics, the mattress there was literally stuffed full of money, and and it was still well-stocked with all her favorite brands of cereal, just in case. But since their relationship had evolved to the next level, Parker spent less of her time at the warehouse, and now that the holiday season had arrived, more time fixated on the decorations of their shared living quarters at the brew pub.

 

Eliot had a grouchy reputation, and he liked to frown and carry on about her frivolity, but in reality Eliot didn’t really care what Parker did with the tree or with lights and gimcracks  and gewgaws as long as his kitchens and cook spaces were left sacrosanct.  Although, with Parker, her decorations were just as likely to be priceless as to be lifted from a trip to the dollar store.  

 

When the big morning came, Eliot saw a familiar-looking long flat box, a little wider than usual. Maybe a cleaver?  Weirdly though, no giant painting sized objects were to be seen, only a large thin envelope covered with stickers of candy canes, elves and reindeers, plus fancy letters that spelled out HARDISON in snarled strings of colored lights.

 

“You first,” Parker said to Hardison.  

 

Now that their feelings were all out in the open, Eliot loved to feast his eyes on Parker and Hardison, the two people he loved more than he’d ever thought possible.  Parker looked so ridiculous in her green and red elf outfit, complete with white fur trimming, tall boots, a necklace made of several strands of blinking lights, and a headband with plush reindeer antlers sewn all over with jingle bells.  Yet, at the same time, he adored the way she brought her sweet enthusiasm to Christmas every year despite the fact that she was now the mastermind of Leverage International.  

 

Parker looked excited and nervous and happy and scared all at once as she handed the large envelope to Hardison.  

 

“I wonder what this could be,” Hardison said with an encouraging and playful smile as he  opened Parker’s gift and slowly removed what seemed to be some kind of medical photographs.  

 

Frowning at the photographs, yet trying to smile at the same time, Hardison was clearly at a loss for words.  

 

“Ah, ha!  Yeah, girl!  You gave me… uh… some kind of sonogram?”

 

Parker smiled widely.  “It’s my heart! It’s a cardiac MRI of my heart!”

 

“Oh!” Hardison said.  “Wow!”

 

“I gave you my heart,” Parker said, a little less sure.

 

Hardison picked up the photograph and showed it to Eliot.  It was black, with some strange images in white that probably showed a human heart and its associated blood vessels, if you knew what you were looking at.

 

“Woman, I love you,”  Hardison said, pulling Parker in for a hug and smooch.  “I never thought I’d get someone’s actual heart as a present.”

 

“You like it?” Parker said.  “I thought really hard about the presents this year. Everyone always says it’s the thought that counts.  And I thought, you want my heart more than anything.  So, there you go.”

 

“Not just your heart, mama,” Hardison said, waggling his eyebrows.  

 

“You can have the rest of me anytime,” Parker said.  “But now, you can have my heart too!”

 

“You’re the best,” Hardison said, and smooched her again.

 

She was already wiggling away toward Eliot’s box.  She handed it to him, eyeing him like a hawk.

 

After the MRI of her heart, it could be anything.  It was heavier than a knife or dagger would be.  Opening the box with trepidation, he was a little let down to see a plain slab of slate, the kind that the trendy brew pubs were using to serve appetizers.

 

“Uh,” he said, looking to Parker for an explanation. He’d repeatedly and heatedly denied Hardison’s ideas about presenting appetizers on pieces of slate, long slabs of reclaimed wood, etc.  The brew pub used simple white plates, and Eliot liked it that way.

 

Parker nervously darted her eyes at Hardison.  Hardison’s own eyes widened slightly as he tried to cover his own confusion, then suddenly widened as he understood what she was getting at.  

 

“Oh!” Hardison said with a smile, nodding at Parker.  “Good call, mama.”

 

Parker looked back at Eliot.  “It’s a blank slate,” she said simply.

 

“Huh?” Eliot said, but his heart suddenly began to pound.  He couldn’t find anything to say, and Parker scooted closer to him, taking his right hand in hers while Hardison nudged up against him on the left.

 

“You’ve done a lot of stuff,” Parker said simply.  “Some of it we know about, some of it we don’t. None of it matters to us.  Just so you know.”

 

Eliot felt Parker’s jumble of words hit him in the sternum and ache all the way down.  He tried to take a breath and felt it catch in his throat.  

 

“I … I don’t…” he choked.

 

“I knew it,” Parker said, narrowing her eyes.  “This wasn’t enough for you.  I’ll have to get the card.”

 

“What? No!  Parker!  Of course it’s enough…” Eliot felt awful as Parker bounded to her mastermind desk and retrieved a card from the desk drawer.

 

Miserable and ashamed, he took the card.  “I like the slate.  I get it. It means a lot to me.”

 

“Here,” Parker said.  “This goes with it.”

 

Eliot opened the plain white envelope.  His name wasn’t even written on the outside.  Inside was a stack of blank white index cards.  Eliot thumbed through them, wondering if there was invisible ink, or what.  He sniffed them and ran his fingers across them, feeling for indentations, but couldn’t detect anything.

 

“I don’t get it,” he finally said.  The blank slate, he kind of got.  It was a sweet gesture, but Eliot knew his past could never really be washed clean.  

 

“It’s carte blanche,” Parker said, proud and sincere.  

 

“Oh yeah, mama!” Hardison high fived Parker over Eliot’s simple stack of cards.  

 

Eliot was starting to get annoyed.  

 

“Dammit Hardison!” he growled.  “How come you seem to know everything about my present and I don’t even know what the hell she’s trying to get at!”

 

“Hey, man, let the lady speak,” Hardison said. “Pretty sure she’s speaking for both of us.”

 

Parker rolled her eyes at Eliot, spoiling the sincerity of the moment a little, but still, not giving up.  

 

“I gave you a blank slate, because the stuff you used to do doesn’t matter to us.  But, I’m also giving you carte blanche on whatever you do from now on. We trust you, Eliot.  You’re so good and you take such good care of us, and sometimes you get bogged down on the hard choices you have to make and maybe you forget how much we love you for everything you do.”

 

“Yup,” Hardison said, eyes shining on Eliot  with pride and love.

 

Eliot knew he couldn’t ever put into words what he felt for these two people, who’d taken a man who’d burned out his own conscience and helped him claw his way back into humanity, into their family, into their arms.

 

“I wrote you a song,” Eliot murmured, after he’d hugged them both fiercely for a while and his eyes had mostly stopped burning.     

 

“Play it for us after breakfast,” Parker said.  “I need french toast!”

 

“And Spencer special hot chocolate?” Hardison suggested.

 

“Sure thing,” Eliot said.  He already had everything ready to go for Christmas breakfast.

 

Later at the table, Parker savored her chocolate and looked at him with a wide, wide smile. “Tastes like you love us.”

 

“I do,” Eliot swore, just like he always would.

  
  
  



End file.
